


(Please Don't) Say You Love Me

by ymnfilter



Series: ♬♩♪♩ you can fall in love to it ♩♪♩♬ [2]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Based on a song, F/M, Fluff and Angst, It's really not that bad, and Rose Tyler being an absolute angel, but really it's more whump instead, just the doctor being emotionally constipated, so you know, their regular dynamic, well I say angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-17 06:21:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29837340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ymnfilter/pseuds/ymnfilter
Summary: The Doctor and Rose Tyler love each other. It's as much a fact as anything else in the universe.The sun rises in the east on Earth, sets in the west, the Doctor is a timelord, Rose Tyler is a human, and they love each other.Doesn't mean he can bear to hear it.
Relationships: Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler, The Doctor (Doctor Who)/Rose Tyler
Series: ♬♩♪♩ you can fall in love to it ♩♪♩♬ [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2193549
Comments: 10
Kudos: 43





	(Please Don't) Say You Love Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AnnaBanana_04](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnaBanana_04/gifts).



> Based on a song prompt given to me by [AnnaBanana_04](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnaBanana_04/pseuds/AnnaBanana_04) The Song is: Please Don't Say You Love Me by Gabrielle Apilan.
> 
> I hope you like it ><
> 
> HAPPY READING!
> 
> p.s: this is not a continuation or a companion piece to 'tolerate it'. its in the same series just because both these fics are based on songs. 
> 
> p.p.s: if you have any prompts/submissions you want me to write, or if you just want to talk, you can find me on:
> 
> tumblr:[ @ymnfilter ](https://ymnfilter.tumblr.com)  
> twitter:[ @ymnfilter ](https://twitter.com/ymnfilter)

_There used to be an empty space,_

_A photograph without a face._

_But with your presence and your grace,_

_Everything falls into place._

The Doctor and Rose Tyler love each other. It's as much a fact as anything else in the universe. 

The sun rises in the east on Earth, sets in the west, the Doctor is a timelord, Rose Tyler is a human, and they love each other. 

Doesn't mean he can bear to hear it. 

She never says it outright. She knows him too well. Knows he will run and run and never look back if she actually says those words. But she comes close enough, enough times that it has him shaking in his chucks anyway. Partially because he wants to run away and partially because he wants to kneel in front of her and beg her to stay. 

_Travelling with you, I love it._ She says, and it sounds like an ‘ _I love you_ ’. 

_Sir Doctor,_ she calls him, with her tongue in her teeth and affection brimming in her eyes like honey, and it sounds like an ‘ _Doctor, I love you_ ’. 

_“Is that what you’re going to do to me?”_ She asks him, hurt and desperate and begging him to not let her be just like all the rest of the others and it sounds like an ‘ _Please_ , _I love you_ ’-

He almost says it back then. _“Not to you”_ he says, and in that moment, with their eyes quantum locked on each other and three hearts beating in tandem, even to a stranger it would sound like an ‘ _I love you’._

_“You can spend the rest of your life with me”,_ he continues, can’t stop himself. Words keep pouring out of his mouth, a confession building at the back of his throat that might just lead to another regeneration with the way it’s going.

_“but i can't spend the rest of mine with you”,_ They’re like heartbeats, the unsaid words burning at the base of his stomach. They pulse and throb and repeat themselves over and over again as if they’re alive-

_I love you I love you I love you-_

_“Imagine having to watch that happen to someone you-”_

And he doesn't say them. 

_Just please don’t say you love me,_

_Cause I might not say it back._

_Doesn’t mean my heart stops skipping,_

_When you look at me like that._

But it doesn't matter because she hears them anyway. Her eyes widen, breath hitching, 

" _Someone you what, Doctor?_ " She asks, and he can't help it. He runs. 

Not physically. The universe would have to pry him away from Rose Tyler with a crowbar if it wanted to separate them. Anything less, and he will cling to her within an inch of his life. But he runs metaphorically. Stays close to Sarah Jane for the rest of the adventure, brings Mickey Smith on board despite how much the boy grates on his nerves, runs off with Reneitte Poisson and almost loses his home and the love of his life all at once in the process, 

And with every person he brings between them, he can see her get farther and farther away from him. Again, not physically. Rose Tyler seems to need him just as desperately as he does her, but metaphorically. Her smiles dim, her hold on his hand loosens, their shoulder barely ever bump against each other now-

He's on a path of self destruction and he can't stop himself. Sooner or later she's going to take one last look at him, deign him not all that worth it after all, and set her eyes on someone better. 

He dreads the day Rose Tyler stops looking at him. 

He clings to her the more she tries to pull away, latches on to her fingers like a scared child, pulls her closer into him till their sides press everytime they walk, places kisses on her temple, her hair, her cheek, steering clear of the most tempting pair of lips he's ever seen, but raining her with his affection everywhere else. 

It's not fair, because he still can't say those words. They burn like acid every time he swallows them back, but he can’t say them. Still can’t hear her say them _to_ him. It's not fair to her, it's not fair to him, but it feels like the only way the universe will let him have her.

He makes up new words instead, 

" _How long are you going to stay with me, Rose Tyler?_ " he asks, ‘ _Will you please love me, Rose Tyler’_ he means, 

" _Forever._ " she answers, and it sounds like an, ‘ _I love you’_. 

He clutches on to her hands tighter, and very deliberately doesn’t run. 

  
  
  


_“We could both share one.”_ She offers him shyly. They’re on an impossible spaceship, orbiting around an impossible blackhole. She’s talking about a house and a mortgage and everything they’re sort of already doing but this time on solid ground. 

It feels like she’s talking about their souls instead.

He waits for that urge to run to overwhelm him again. He’s both confused and delighted when it doesn’t come.

“ _I promised Jackie that I’d always take you back home_.” The Doctor tells her then. A promise he made to a companion’s mother. Yet another thing he’d never experienced before meeting Rose Tyler. Though, Rose wasn’t really just a companion anyway.

“ _Everyone leaves home in the end_.” She forgives him, sounds so flippant about it, if it wasn’t for the fact that her leg is nervously jiggling quite insistently next to his under the table, he would think this entire tragedy wasn’t getting to her at all.

“ _Not to end up stuck here._ ” It’s an offering of sorts. An out for her to express her frustration and anger at him instead. She doesn’t have to keep her composure for his sake. She _shouldn’t_ have to. But, she doesn’t take it. Instead, she smiles,

“ _Yeah, but stuck with you? That’s not so bad._ ”

Strangely, those words, in that moment, when they might as well be the only people to ever exist in this vast unknown universe, sound more like an _‘I love you’_ than any of the other new words that they’ve come up with.

“ _Yeah?_ ” He asks, and would’ve cringed at the barely concealed hope between that one short word if it hadn’t been for her answering smile,

“ _Yes._ ”

And he knows then, that she knows he loves her. And he knows she loves him too. It’s not right, or fair, or good. It’s still hiding and secrets and wishes stuffed in that darkest corners of their souls-

But, it’s enough.

_‘Besides, they have time.’_ He thinks, ‘ _he'll tell her one day.’_

_Fools rush in, and I've been fooled before,_

_This time I'm going to slow it down,_

_Cause I think this could be more,_

_The thing I'm looking for._

Turns out, they don't have time after all. 

He can feel it for weeks, the storm brewing at the edge of the horizon. It starts with _"The valiant child, who will die in battle so very soon."_ and follows them every stop they make, timelines twisting and turning, churning in the very marrow of his bones-

-endless possibilities, infinite futures-

and in none of them is she with him by the time the storm ends. 

_"you know what? They keep on trying to split us up, but they never ever will."_ It's an _I love you_ that sounds more like a challenge to the universe than a confession to him. He knows what she expects to hear. What she wants to hear-

_Right you are, Rose Tyler._

_Of course, they won't, Rose Tyler._

_They wouldn't dare, Rose Tyler-_

And yet the timelines tighten around his neck like a noose, and all he can think about is that the countdown's almost at zero-

their time is almost up-

and he isn't willing to let her go yet. 

So, he tightens his hold on her hand, pulls her closer till they're joined shoulders to hips, wills them through the sheer power of his mind to fuse together till you can't pull one apart without inevitably getting the other-

He begs her to not taunt the universe, and begs the universe to not take her away from him, and most of all begs his hearts to tell her-

_I love you I love you I love you_

They run. Against time and space, through time and space. Only ever landing on leisure planets and marketplaces. He's extra careful to never lose her in a crowd, is almost always keeping her within touching distance, ready to grab and sprint at the first sight of danger-

And for a while it works. Long enough he starts easing up a little. Long enough, the grinding timelines around him have almost become white noise. Against Rose's lovely laughter and her wide smiles and her bright bright eyes, the impending storm starts to seem more like a light drizzle -a touch and go, they’ve done it a million times before- than anything else. 

And then they visit London. 

Suddenly, the Doctor can't breathe at all. 

There are Daleks and Cybermen, alternate dimensions and a void of nothing-

A million, billion, gazillion possibilities running through his head every second and none of them include Rose Tyler's hand intertwined with his by the end of the day. 

_They get separated._

It's infinitely better than her getting upgraded, or dying, or falling into the void, because she's out there somewhere, _light years and a universe away somewhere_ , but she's _alive._

He tries to convince himself- that should be enough -but all he feels when he flexes his hand or curls it close is stale air and isolation. 

Only, instead of a forever she promised, they get two minutes together. 

One hundred and twenty seconds. 

Quite possibly _the_ most important one hundred and twenty seconds ever in the Doctor's tragically long life. 

All bets are off, all unspoken rules now null. They watch each other suffer a universe apart, him inside the TARDIS too scared to breath and her on a beach in Norway, looking so fragile with tears running down her cheeks, he's afraid the wind might blow her away-

_"I love you."_ She says finally, and it's just as devastating as the Doctor had always feared it would be. 

He's ready to say it back though. If this is the last memory she'll have of him, if this is all she'll have to remember him by, 

He's going to make it the greatest confession of love in this universe and the next and the million others after that, 

"I suppose," He begins, hearts hammering against his chest so fast their might as well be a dozen of them instead of just the two, "If it's my last chance to say it, Rose Tyler, I-" 

**Author's Note:**

> (i might just end up making this an ongoing series, depending on if i find enough songs that suit them well)
> 
> as always, kudos and comments are very, very appreciated!
> 
> also: if you have any prompts/submissions you want me to write, or if you just want to talk, you can find me on:
> 
> tumblr:[ @ymnfilter ](https://ymnfilter.tumblr.com)  
> twitter:[ @ymnfilter ](https://twitter.com/ymnfilter)


End file.
